I’m slowly creeping across the Golden Gate
Bridge towards Marin County, cursing myself for somehow
forgetting about the bridge’s legendary rush hour crawl. The
steady pace of 5.5 mph seems too much for some of my fellow
drivers, who begin honking their horns and shaking their fists
at the sky, the bridge, and yes, dear readers, even each other
(!). I tap my fingers impatiently on my steering wheel while
the motorist directly to my right screams out various
obscenities about the mothers of his neighboring commuters,
mine own included (for the record, she is a very, very nice
woman.). The cars in front of me lurch to a halt, and then
slowly continue to inch forward towards what seems like our
only beacon of hope: the light at the end of the MacArthur
tunnel.

The supreme irony of it all is that being
stuck in this less-than-ideal northward trek over the beloved
and beleaguered bridge is causing me to be late in attending a
public hearing that will help decide the landmark’s fate
over the next few years. The Golden Gate Bridge Highway and
Transportation District, the bridge’s managing agency, is
operating under a severe budgeting deficit and projects a $441
million dollar shortfall in the next five years. In order to
combat operating that severely in the red, the District’s
finance committee had proposed a number of ways of cutting
costs including hiring and salary freezes, charging for bridge
and ferry terminal parking, scaling back its post 9/11
security costs, and/or raising bus and ferry transit fares.

What seems the most likely route to get
approved, however, is the reason for tonight’s public
hearing and the center of the latest controversy to dog Marin’s
maligned transit bureaucracy. The committee also submitted 12
toll increase options to make up the revenue difference,
including charging a fee for those who walk or bike across the
bridge or instating a two-way bridge toll (there is only a
toll for southbound lanes entering into San Francisco). The
current darling is Toll Option G: Raise the bridge toll from
$3 to $5, with monthly FasTrak passes (the electronic toll
system) increasing from a $3 to $4 a crossing. And even this
moderate increase, it seems, is too much for some to stomach.
The story started out for me, as so many stories do, with an
innocent phone call. I was minding my own business, surfing
the Internet for pornography, when I realized that insistent
ringing wasn’t my tinnitus acting up. It was my editor on
the line, in his usual state of manic agitation.
“Did you read today’s paper? Have you heard about the
public hearing for the Bridge toll tonight?” he asked.

“Yeah, for the increase, right?”
“Exactly. You need to cover it. But be careful, the ‘Transit
Taliban’ will be there!”
“I’m sorry,” I said, picturing a host of San Rafaelites
in chadors. “The who?”
“These Marin residents who don’t want the toll to be
increased because it means they can’t drive their
gas-guzzling SUVs.”
“Oh, c’mon!” I said. Hell, I wasn’t a North Bay native
and I drive a 10 year-old Mitsubishi Precis, and I didn’t
like the idea of having to shell out an extra two bucks every
time I felt like heading to Novato. Who am I, a DuPont?
“You’ll see what I mean. I’d go, but I think there would
be a lynching. Check it out tonight. You can’t miss these
people. They’ll be the ones burning an effigy of me out
front.”
For those of you who are wondering what the fuss is about,
here’s a Reader’s Digest history of the who, what and why
behind the toll hike:

The Golden Gate Bridge District was formed
in the 1930s when the residents of San Francisco, Sonoma,
Marin, Del Norte, Mendocino and Napa counties decided to
support a bond issued for the construction and maintenance of
its namesake bridge. The bond was eventually paid off by 1971,
but two years prior, the state legislature had granted the
district an added responsibility of handling public transit
needed to reduce growing bridge traffic congestion. When the
committee first developed their bus and ferry transit system
in the mid-1970s, it was estimated that 30,000 people in
20,000 vehicles crossed the bridge daily. Twenty years later,
the number of commuters had risen by 5,000; the number of
vehicles, a mere 900. Both the bridge’s ongoing maintenance
and the transit programs are primarily funded by transit
generated revenue…and bridge tolls.

The current $3toll used for southbound
drivers crossing the bridge was instituted in 1991, and
reports at the time showed that the toll would cover the
expenses needed for about five fiscal years. Eleven years
later, the incremental rise of inflation in the Bay Area,
expensive projects such as ongoing earthquake retrofitting and
the need for increased security in today’s volatile national
climate has seen costs rise and revenue returns diminish.
Money was needed to close the gap, and despite promises that
the toll wouldn’t be raised, an increase seemed the only
answer.

Not everyone agrees on that last point,
however. Many local residents already felt that the District
has outlasted its need and outstayed its welcome, pointing to
unsubstantiated allegations of mismanagement, insular
political skullduggery (board members are appointed rather
than elected), rigging bids for bridge reconstruction and
padding both their record books and their wallets at the
public trust’s expense. The proposal that tolls be
increased, thus charging commuters to help fund public transit
systems they don’t use directly, was deemed a final straw.
Others feel that the District has done a decent job but that
the state-run California Department of Transit, or CalTrans,
as it is commonly referred to, should assume the managerial
reins as it has with the Bay Area’s seven other bridges.
Still others felt that a separate, privatized transit system
should control the bridge’s public transit system, leaving
bridge-generated revenue out of it entirely and letting
economic Darwinism take its natural course as to whether the
buses and ferries would flourish or be finished.

All this figured prominently when the
District members announced that, after several open houses and
prior to deciding on a final course of action, a public
hearing was announced for the evening of June 13th. The public
and the low-level politicians were meeting in the name of
democratic dialogue to discuss the pros and cons in a
civilized manner. The resulting affair, at times, wouldn’t
have seemed out of place at a WWF smackdown.

I’d already missed the opening remarks
when I pulled into the parking lot thanks to snail’s pace I’d
been required to keep, and was about a hundred yards away from
the door when I started to hear the yelling.

“…and I’ve submitted several requests
to see who exactly is getting these passes to cross the bridge
for free, and my requests have repeatedly been denied, and
what do you all have to hide?” A resounding roar of approval
from the crowd. “I mean, when I finally got to view a list,
some of the entries just listed an address…no name! So I
want to know who exactly gets these passes, and why they seem
to last for an indefinite amount of time, and uh, I want an
answer!” More cheering. I sensed moral high ground being
scaled, but didn’t hear any mention of the toll. Was I at
the wrong place?

No, the woman at the entrance confirmed as
she handed me the Xeroxed agenda sheets, this indeed was the
public hearing. Open forums around volatile issues such as
this one tend to get heated, and when the first public speaker
of the night decided not to attack the toll hike so much as
the District itself, a tone was set for most of the evening:
Yelling. Indignation. Outrage at the way the Bridge District
conducted their affairs. Accusations of mismanagement,
corruption, graft, the rich stealing from the poor. District
members present and accounted for (several members hadn’t
been able, or didn’t bother, to show up) merely adopted a
stoic, somewhat aloof silence in response to the hurled
invectives. What could they say, I wondered, as one speaker
would step down, and the next speaker’s name would begin to
rail away. Rinse, then repeat…I could see my editor’s joke
about lynching didn’t seem that far off all of a sudden.

It was then that I began to see the people
my editor had colloquially and colorfully dubbed the “Transit
Taliban,” the well-to-do Marinites and their upper-middle
class soccer mom counterparts looking ready to rip into the
flesh of anyone expecting them to fund public transit. Some
carried large picket signs declaring a love for CalTrans, whom
many present thought was a one-stop shopping solution to all
of the Golden Gate’s funding problems. That spending deficit…hey,
that wasn’t their problem! Just turn over the bridge to
CalTranss, and whoosh! Problem solved. One gentleman, who to
his credit later spoke quite eloquently and calmly regarding
his anti-toll bias, held up a sign which simply read “$100,”
framed by the universal symbol for “no” (a circle
dissected by a slash). Was there another proposal I was
unaware of that suggested the toll be raised to $100 per car?
Did he not like $100 bills? I was confused.

Of course, the toll’s opposition wasn’t
relegated just to the screaming, mewling self-righteous
nouveau riche. Many anti-toll proponents brought up fine
points, such as the effect of such a raise on the lower-middle
class families commuting from the South Bay, or the
disincentive of North Bay residents to support, say, San
Francisco’s family-friendly Fort Baker museum and its ilk.
But the voice of reason often took a backseat to the voice of
the angry mob, many of whom were ready to raise their voices
at the slightest hint of disagreement.

Woe, woe be unto those whose opinions don’t
jibe with the “voice of the people,” lest ye be booed! One
gentleman, still clad in his bike-riding gear, championed both
the toll raise and the boost he hoped it would give to
supporting a non-automobile, more environment-friendly
alternative…he could barely finish his sentences before he
was drowned out by cries for his head. Another gentlemen
responded to the notion of decrying the toll since the bridge
was paid for (a popular argument) by quipping “Just because
your mortgage is paid doesn’t mean the utility company will
keep your lights on, or the plumber won’t expect money for
fixing your toilet.” He then suggested that a $5 toll wasn’t
enough…the boos were near-deafening. Democracy, I was
reminded, can be an ugly business when you take the road less
popularly traveled.

The sad fact of the matter is, it won’t be
enough. The financial reports show that, even if Toll Option G
does go into effect, the Golden Gate Bridge won’t be in the
clear; the increase will reduce the $441 million debt to a
mere $6.8 million in the next five years, but that still
translates to a lack of proper funds needed. The fact that the
toll isn’t going up to $8, the current toll of most New York
bridges and the necessary amount for financing the completion
of retrofitting, among other things, and is only increasing by
two dollars (with FasTrak likely to only move up a buck!)
while the Bay Area economy nosedives and inflation rates rise
sky-high, should be seen as the compromise, and bargain, that
it is.

Of course, if one is willing to give them
the benefit of the doubt, one can deduce that many of Marin’s
residents, living in one of the wealthiest counties per capita
in the United States, are less opposed to giving up a few
dollars than the principle of the matter. As a woman at the
hearing pointed out: “This really boils down to two issues:
Who should be paying for public transit and who should be
managing the bridge?”

Good point, especially since an estimated
45% of toll revenue goes to transit expenses. So let’s
address the former question first. Who should be paying for
public transit? Those who benefit from it: Transit riders and
the commuters. It is a “social” benefit, and anyone
reading this who may have crinkled their nose as thoughts of
welfare and New Deal-era bailouts traverse through their mind
needs to rethink their stigma attached to the phrase. Even
casting aside the obvious environmental benefits of having
fewer cars on the road, everyone using the Golden Gate Bridge
benefits from having a transit system.

Bridge commuters don’t feel that they
should have to subsidize a transit program of buses and
ferries that they, as drivers, aren’t personally using. But
let’s look back at those numbers regarding traffic growth of
the last 25 or so years, drivers: Marin’s public transit
system has lowered the number of cars traveling across the
bridge significantly, curbing what could have been gridlock
epidemics of epic proportions. As an alternative to clogging
the bridge daily with an extra thousand or so vehicles, you’d
think commuters might be willing to support such a small
contribution (especially when you consider that a sales tax
and a gasoline tax, both voted down by Marin residents, are
the usual financial modus operandi for such programs). Fares
should also be raised to reflect the fiscal need, undoubtedly;
but to act as if public transit has nothing to do with your
commute is voluntary blindness.

Which brings us to the second question: Who
should be managing the bridge? A tricky question, that, but
not an unanswerable one. Calls for the Bridge District to be
disbanded and for a North Bay Transit association to be formed
were rampant at the public hearing, as were the call to arms
for CalTrans to wrest control of the national landmark. The
Bridge District may in fact be reaping the benefits of
political cronyism, as many have contended, though
investigations of the group have brought up nothing
substantial to hang them on. And, as Chronicle columnist Ken
Garcia so colorfully pointed out, it may still suffer from an
“anachronistic structure…a group overly reliant on
lawyers, lobbyists and political connections”
(Congratulations, Mr. Garcia…you’ve just described
virtually every corporate and political entity.)

But, in order to support disbanding the
Bridge District, a feasible alternative must be dredged forth,
and none seems to have been brought to light as of yet. The
idea of CalTrans taking over the Golden Gate Bridge may seem
ideal in concept, as they are already responsible for the
maintenance and management of the Bay Area’s other bridges
and notable transit systems. But pundits seem to be arguing
that the District is an inefficient bureaucracy…how will
turning the Golden Gate Bridge over to an already overworked,
overtaxed bureaucracy (let’s not forget they also maintain
our highways) not renowned for its efficiency, improve either
its management or its state of being? The states of the other
bridges currently under CalTrans designation run the gamut
from passable to downright dodgy. Those decrying the current
state of the bridge’s retrofitting plan, think how long it
would take if CalTrans were at the helm. You’ve just left
the frying pan, and the fire isn’t far behind.

As a state-run CalTrans bridge, the Golden
Gate would be subject to the toll standards set by the
Metropolitan Transit Committee (MTC), an even more put-upon
bureaucratic entity. Those decrying that the Golden Gate
Bridge is a national landmark and should be treated as such
with federal subsidies (fact: State and federal subsidies are
already granted to the Bridge, and it is still operating in a
deficit) should be cringing at the idea that it would be
another in a long line of projects vying for attention and
treatment. And those of you that think the MTC would never
hike the toll up to $5, think again; as they suffer under the
same financial crunch that all local agencies suffer from, a
toll hike to cover growing expenses and costs is all but
inevitable.

Driving back home to San Francisco after the
hearing, the fog enveloping my head regarding certain aspects
of the toll debacle seemed to clear just as I was entering the
literal fog of my hometown. My drive to Marin in traffic took
me ten to fifteen minutes longer than usual; one can only
guess how much longer I would have been stuck in traffic had
transit not been available. Of course, had I taken transit to
get there, I would have had to catch a ferry to catch a bus to
drop me off several blocks away from my destination, and that
in and of itself realistically could have taken hours.
Clearly, the Golden Gate transit system needs to have its
various kinks worked out so that it becomes a feasible and
timely alternative instead of a pipe dream.

Privatization, wherein transit “would live
and die on its own feet,” to quote a hearing speaker, is not
the answer. Nor is the ability to just throw a pile of money
the cure-all for the system’s problems. Strict guidelines
need to be set for transit reform, and an institution that has
the public trust can do so. Rather than disbanding the Bridge
District, and substituting local control of the Golden Gate
for the tortoise-like mechanics of a larger put-upon entity,
the District should retain control and members should be voted
in like most public servants, shaking off the veil of “old
boys country club” and taking on the mantle as an
institution run for the public, by the public.

Transit fares must go up to help shoulder
the burden. FasTrak fares need to stay at $4, keeping
car-commuting an economically viable option for those who
simply must use their cars as a form of transportation. And
cold, hard facts must be faced by both sides: The Bridge
District’s reputation as a self-interested “fat cat”
haven needs to be repaired so the public can get behind them,
and the public must realize that a lot has happened in 11
years. Including, unfortunately, the need for a toll hike.

As I approached the tollbooth window on my
way home, I opened my wallet to pull out my last five-dollar
bill. As I took my change back, I realized that if the
proposal had passed and gone into effect, I would be dead
broke. But then I thought about the drive I had just taken,
and how, minus a bridge at all, it would have been nearly
impossible to make that meeting at all. If paying a slightly
higher fare means not bidding the Golden Gate Bridge a
fare-thee-well, then I would have plunked down the few extra
bucks (or better yet, reminded myself to get a FasTrak). It
would have been money well spent.